Lesson 2: How successful was the Great Leap Forward (Second Five-Year Plan), 1958-62? Flashcards
What happens as a result of decentralisation?
Economy controlled less by the government,.
Greater ability for local leaders to set targets.
What is decentralisation?
The transfer of part of the powers of the central government to regional or local authorities
What is General Steel?
Turning China into a successful modern economy.
What is a backyard furnace?
Primitive smelting device that every family was encouraged to build on its premises.
What is General Grain?
Increasing China’s food supplies so they could become self-sufficient.
Through what was General Grain achieved?
Collectivisation.
What does the term ‘state owned enterprises’ mean?
Bringing businesses under total government control.
What is mass effort?
Modernising the economy using the effort of the Chinese people.
What were construction projects?
Using the masses to industrialise and rebuild China
What was the main aim of the GLF?
Turn the PRC into a modern, industrial country in the shortest time possible.
Between what years was the GLF?
1958-62
What is the Second Five-Year Plan also known as?
Great Leap Forward
Before launching the GLF, what did Mao believe about China?
It was now strong enough to end its economic ties to Russia.
Who was the Second FYP planned by?
The CCP itself.
What did Mao believe the dedicated efforts of the Chinese people could, simply, do?
Help China surpass the major nations
What were the key categories of reasons for why Mao launched the GLF?
Political
Ideological
Economic
Personal
What were the political reasons for Mao’s launch of the GLF?
Differences in the party about how best to reward good food production amongst peasant.
Gave more freedom to local party officials through decentralisation.
What were the ideological reasons for Mao’s launch of the GLF?
Wished to take China towards Communism on the ‘ Chinese road’.
Relied on mass mobilisation-fitted with Mao’s thinking.
Mao was carrying out a purge known as the ‘anti-rightist campaign’ at this stage and local party cadres were eager to prove their loyalty to Mao.
What were the economic reasons for Mao’s launch of the GLF?
Commitment of the GLF to develop industry and agriculture while also mobilising peasantry for construction.
Industrialisation of nation depended on agriculture becoming more efficient.
What were the personal reasons for Mao’s launch of the GLF?
Mao had returned from Moscow and wished to show the Soviet Union that China could work independently from them.
Mao’s confidence at this point was at a high.
Before the launching the GLF, why was Mao’s confidence at a high?
Had achieved collectivisation of the peasants quicker than expected.
Had been enthusiastic on a tour of China’s regions in 1958
What was 1 suggestion, in the party, of how to best reward good food production amongst the peasants?
Chen Yun suggested ‘carrot’ approach.
Give good producers consumer goods or good prices for their food.
What did the General Steel campaign involve?
Backyard furnaces.
Main aim of the GLF.
To modernise China and make them wholly self sufficient and competing with other Western superpowers.
To make China one of the richest, most advanced and powerful countries in the world.
What was the main idea behind the General Steel campaign?
China’s industry would ‘leap forward by creating as much steel as possible.’
When was the GLF announced?
At the Eight CCP Congress in May 1958
What did the GLF aim to turn the PRC into?
A modern, industrial state in the shortest time possible.
How would the PRC build an economy that would catch up with the major nations with the GLF?
Would revolutionise China’s agriculture and industry.
Who would the GLF be dependant on?
Peasants and agriculture of the workers
What would make sure China would be able to pass the major nations?
The dedicated efforts of the Chinese people led by their inspired Communist government.
[QUOTE] What did Mao say in Moscow in 1957 about the intentions and targets of the GLF?
“The East win will prevail over the West win, because we are powerful and strong. You just cannot decide things with the quantity of steel and iron; rather first and foremost, things are determined by people’s hearts and minds.”
Who did China admire for what it had achieved economically?
USSR
Mao was determined to match the USSR’s economic achievement but without what?
Their slavish methods
What did Mao feel the PRC was strong enough to do in 1957?
Begin to end their earlier economic dependence on the USSR
Why was a decentralised economy introduced despite the central government still remaining very much in control?
Done to give more freedom to the masses to harness the power of the Chinese people.
Mao believed if state bureaucrats had control they could slow the pace of the revolution.
What did Mao wish to achieve by planning for China to lift off using China’s mass population?
- The collectivised peasants, working in their communes, would produce surplus of food that would be sold abroad to raise money for the expansion of Chinese industry.
- The workers would create, literally with their own hand, a modern industrial economy, powerful enough to compete with the Soviet Union and the Capitalist West.
What was there an emphasis on during the GLF?
Heavy industry and large projects.
What was Mao convinced could solve all the problems of industrial development?
The manpower of China
Why were mechanical diggers shunned?
Suggested the Earth was being moved too much by the hands of the workers.
Give examples of large projects which were constructed during the GLF.
Giant span bridges
Canals
Dams
What was it common to see across China during the GLF?
Men, women and children dressed in identical blue uniforms.
[QUOTE] What was Mao known as due to lots of people wearing blue uniforms?
“Mao had become the Emperor of the blue ants.”
Why was the 2nd FYP not considered a plan at all?
Targets were set after no economic analysis.
[QUOTE] In 1958, how did a finance minister describe how disorganised compiling target were then?
“At present the central authorities are compelling targets for the Second Five-Year Plan, but have not been able to catch up with the swift changes in practical conditions that require upward revision of the targets almost every day.”
What were General Grain and General Steel known as?
Two great soldiers that would lead the nation to economic victory.
How would General Grain lead China to economic victory?
Would triumph in the battle to increase China’s food supplies
How would the General Steel campaign lead the nation to an economic victory?
Would turn China into a successful industrial economy
What was produced under the General Steel campaign?
Backyard furnaces
What would backyard furnaces produce?
Masses of steel.
What did Mao believe the production of masses of steel could do?
End all economic problems
Mao’s aim for the production of steel.
Wanted to quadruple steel production to reach the output of 20 million tonnes per annum
At the party Congress of the year the General Steel campaign began, what was the steel target raised from and to what was it raised to?
Raised from 6 to 8 million tonnes.
What was the steel target raised to in September of the year the General Steel campaign was introduced?
10.7 million tonnes
Why was the General Steel campaign introduced?
Due to success of the Water conservancy campaign in which peasants worked together to dig reservoirs and canals.
What 2 things could backyard furnaces supply?
Iron
Steel
Why was everyone, no matter what age, to be involved in the process of making China great again through the backyard furnaces project?
Enthusiasm was the main requirement, not skill.
Backyard furnaces where a national movement.
True or false?
True
[QUOTE] How did Roderick FacFarquar describe the General Steel campaign?
As a “seething, clattering frenzy” that had overtaken China.
“People carried baskets of ore, people stoked, people goaded buffalo carts, people tipped cauldrons of white-hot metal, people stood on rickety ladders and peered into furnaces, people wheeled barrows of crude steel.”
Even who joined in the mass production of steel?
Ministers and their families.
What did ministers report excitedly back to China?
How quick people were responding to Mao’s call for steel.
Weaknesses of the General Steel campaign.
- People were eager but unsuccessful.
- Only suitable steel to use for industry came from large foundries (factories/workshops)
- People’s steel was worthless and ended up as large, huge, unusable blobs known as pig-iron.
- Placed unnecessary strain on food production
- Was too close to schools
- Had economic impact as manpower was not being employed effectively
- Ecological consequences as it led to the destruction of swathes (broad areas) of woodland for fuel.
Despite authorities knowing the steel was unusable, what did they do?
Went on pretending and continued collecting the steel then dumped it in deep pits and covered them.
By what year was the General Steel campaign cut back to some extent but not totally?
1959
What are SOE’s?
State-owned enterprises
What did the SOE’s campaign attempt to do?
Bring industry under total government direction.
What happened to businesses not under complete control of the government?
Were nationalised in early 1956
What could existing firms and companies no longer operate as?
Private, profit-making concerns
What would existing firms and companies instead operate as?
Would work for state as designated SOEs
What could workers no longer do as designated SOEs?
Bargain over rates of pay and conditions.
For SOEs, what was to be fixed by the state?
Price
Output targets
Wages
Why did SOEs perform less well than anticipated?
It abandoned any idea of incentives.
Benefits of SOEs for the CHinese worker.
Had a secure job for life as per the iron rice bowl scheme
Results of SOEs.
Were not efficiently run and led to lack of incentive in the workplace.
Much like within the communes this led to a reduction in production.
What was the term ‘Great Leap Forward’ first used to describe?
The water conservancy projects that were launched in late 1957.
What did Mao see the masses as?
A tool in order to modernise China-like emperors did with the Great Wall.
Where were work teams sent out of to construct projects?
Communes
What were work teams sent out of communes to construct?
Dams and reservoirs using rudimentary tools
Give an exact example of a project created during GLF.
Three Gate Gorge Dam
What was the Three Gate Gorge Dam designed to do?
Control the flow of the Yellow River
Despite being the most ambitious project, in how much time was the Three Gate Gorge Dam rebuilt?
Within a year
Weakness of the Three Gate Gorge Dam.
In 1961, 2x as much mud was being deposited downstream and foreign visitors were banned from going there.
Despite hundreds of smaller projects being launched and some being successful, how did they have a great impact on life?
They interfered with the land and led to an increase in salinisation.
The salt build up in the soil reduced fertility.
How were expert used to implement construction schemes?
Poorly
What number did the production of coal (millions of tonnes) go from in 1957 - 1964?
1957 = 131
1964 = 200
What number did the production of steel (millions of tonnes) go from in 1957 - 1964?
1957 = 5.4
1964 = 10
What number did the production of oil (millions of tonnes) go from in 1957 - 1964?
1957 = 1.5
1964 = 7
What number did the production of chemical fertilisers (millions of tonnes) go from in 1957 - 1964?
1957 = 0.8
1964 = 3.6
What number did the production of cotton cloth (billions of tonnes) go from in 1957 - 1964?
1957 = 5.0
1964 = 4.0
What did production figures only show?
Only related to the production of materials-not how the materials were used
By 1962, how much of the 1958 amount of heavy industrial good were China making?
Only half the amount
What was there no plan for during the GLF?
Manufacturing goods
What did China lack which meant they could not build the modern economy Mao promised that would overtake the world in a ‘great leap’?
- Technical skills
- Managerial know-how
- Efficiently run factories and plants
- An adequate transport system
- Formal planning
What did Mao assume was a substitute for effective planning?
The mass deployment of people
Successes of GLF.
Restructuring of Tiananmen Square.
Development of nuclear weapons in 1964
Who did communal endeavours excite and impress?
The Chinese and foreigners
Explanations for why the plan failed to produce a modern economy.
- Quality of finished products fell short of China’s industrial needs
- Political interference made the plan impossible to manage purely as an economic enterprise
- Officials issued demands and threats but few detailed instructions as to how things were actually to be done
- Despite the setting up of SOEs, so much was left to local initiative that China never operated an integrated national plan
- Effective organisation and quality control became difficult to achieve
- 1959: the USSR withdrew technical assistance-closure of half of the 300 industrial plants that the Soviets had sponsored in China.
What would always produce an effective system of production?
Applied Communism
What did reports of party conferences to discuss the progress of the GLF always end up with?
Shouting instead of addressing the real economic problems
What could Mao not accept about the failures of the GLF?
That his policies were at fault
Mao interpreted the lack of economic achievement not as a failure of planning but what?
Sabotage by bourgeois elements and backsliders (people going into back into undesirable behaviour).
Mao accepted the bad results of the GLF.
True or false?
False-denied them.
What was not enough for Mao to plan to place the PRC on par (equal to) with the world’s major industrial powers?
Ambition
What did the FYPs do to China’s vast natural and human resources?
Wasted them rather than exploit them
